NIGHT AIR-RAID ON PARIS

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 18 October 1918, Page 2

NIGHT AIR-RAID ON PARIS

HOW AMERICAN TROOPS AND RED CROSS AID CITY. -THE ALARM AND THE BOMB EXPLOSIONS. Writing of a German air raid on Paris, one of the American Red Cross inspectors gives a thrilling account of how American troops and Red Cross •workers give aid to the city in such desperate moments. He describes an air raid in this fashion:— *'Xowhere is there any sound but ih* echoes of footsteps. Not a street light ia to be seen, not a single ray of light—nothing but the inkiest and moßt impenetrable darkness. Then all of the noise of the world seems to break loose. Clangclang—clang booms the tocsin—like a gigantic pneumatic riveter working on a colossal bell. Whoo-o shrieks the siren, running up and down the scale in an awful wail.

" The streets come to life. Door* opea and slam shut. The sidewalks are full of ghostly figures hurrying towards the caves, where the inhabitants have fitted up cot* and bunks. They get up mow to make a sitting place for the newcomers. The place fills up. Everyone looks apathetic, sleepy, and bored. The children go to sleep with their heads on their mother's shoulders, and a girl in tho unifoim of a street-car conductor swaps war yarns with a poilu in dingy blue. In the" last raid ;he front trucks of her car were thrown from the rails by the displacement of air caused by an exploding torpedo. The car and it* inmates were unhurt. The poilu looks & mite incredulous, and murmurs: ' I caa well believe you mademoiselle.' "' Outside the noise continues for about three or four minutes, and then subsides as n new noise starts—the ' Archies,' or anti-aircraft guns, whicli commence to hark furiously from half a dozen different points. Searchlights rake the sky. Tha Archies continue their ■ clamor, but they are not firing at anything, merely keeping up a barrage fire to prevent the Bocho from flying over the citv.

"• Suddenly there is an earth-rocking whoom. Xo more -ioubt as to where lh« Bodies are. 'Whoom, whoom, whoon! Oi:c involuntarily ducks and tries turtlewist* to cover his head with his shoulders. A hideous noise- resounds up and down tha deserted street—falling walls, and the tinkling and crash of showers of broken glass and roofing tiles. ' RED CROSS TO THE RESCCE.

"Through the glass and litter of the street an American Red Cross Cainoinette comes ploughing its way. One cf the citv firemen stands on the running-board. They siop, and the fireman flashes an electric light into Ihe ruins, makes a hasty inspection, and then runs up the street and dives into the red-light * cave.' Anybody here from numbers 43 t* 51?' he calls. A half a dozen voices yell out that there is. _" * Is anybody here from thoee numbers! Was there anyone left in either of thos» buildings?' "There is an anxious railing back and forth and a rapid counting of Hoses. " All here.' is the answer. Gcod. Not much loft to those two buildings: Don't enter the ruins until they have been inspected by the engineering department. Go to the Sisters of the Poor if you want food or a place to sleep.* " A wail and several curses compete, but the fireman is gone. "The Archies have stopped, and there :irc no more wbooma; but people atav in their cellars. ]t is only 9 o'clock, "and experience has shown that the industrious and methodical Bodies will keep coming back again and again until after midnight.

"" A half a mile away a bright red glow gets larger and larger," and lights the sky. A fire hus broken out in the railroad yards, and is making great headway. Several -cars of oil are burning fiercely and spreading to cars of merchandise. Half a dozen American soldiers are working feverishly trying to get the untouched cars away from the fire. Two of then have got hold of a switch engine, and are shunting out whole strings of car*. " 'Do you know anything about thee* French enginee, sir J' aaks the imprompt* engineer. * I can't find the brake.'

"The fire is eating its way towards a pier on which stands a line of drum* of gasolene.

"' Como on, boys I Koll them kegs o* gsis out a hero," yells the corporal; and the- line of drums starts trundling down the pier. It is infernally hot, and the average man does not know just how hot gasolene can get before it begins to misbehave: but the line never wavers. 'Roll 'em along, boys.' Keep 'em going. Everybody has got to die sometime.' THE ALL-CLEAR SIGNAL. "* Little by little things become quieter. The fires die down. The Archies stop. Here and there a working party still continues its labors in the ruins. Someone is missing, and they want to get him oui of a cellar. Now the tocsin sounds again, this time with slow, steady, measured beat*. This is the 'AAII-clea r signal. No more enemy "planes are flying between hero and the fighting lines. " People coma out of their cellars and go home. A few cautious souls are busily putting sheets of paper and pieces of bedding acroee their bruken windows tr» keep out, the dreaded * courant d'air.' Now and then ther« is a small group in a doorway, recounting i-xperiencefi.

"'The • liodio has dropped over mora than «iuv hundred bombs to-night, many of tbeni of th<- 6601b size. Th» net damage is not very great. A few house* de-sl.royt-d. many windows broken, a few victims—very few. but all too many; a, tew holes blown in the streets, some trees Kprviotfd in the parks, and some pa»ey beds obliterated. 1 imagine that back in his quarters the Bochc escadrille kosaUi:iiidatur..- after sadly cataloguing his o\wi wounds, if writing up an account of his gloriouß night's work for the edification of the reader of the 'Kolnische Zeitung.' Ilia ductile pen is reeling off: * The earth heeled 3nd rocked; and while row.-, of buildings went down like card houses, the light of the flames showed punk-stricken crowds surging through the .-street s towards the open country; the i;i ilrwi d depots were levelled to the ground and many munition dumps wore blown up, and several fires were seen to breaji out in the barracks and military warehouses.'

•* The escadrille kominandatur -would b* grieved beyond measure could he but walk through the streets to-night and inventory the net results and see the effect produced on the population. He -who i» now houseless shrug? his shoulders and says : ' Cest la guerre," and once more th» peaceful stars shine down tranquilly oa the silent streets."